Month: April 2014

This semester’s course in contemporary political rhetoric in The School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University started in January with Aristotle’s Rhetoric, worked through Kenneth Burke, Richard Weaver, Ernest Bormann and others, then looked at contemporary analyses of rhetoric and war, the rhetoric of apology, and other case studies, and ends…

Some of the best advice on how to use 140 characters to promote a position is 18 characters long and 2,000 years old. I am a fan of Aristotle, and in particular his Rhetoric. (His Politics has some interesting things to say about contemporary American politics as well, but that’s a different rant.) A key…

Pharrell Williams is more than a pop musician under an oversized hat. He’s the head of a thriving creative, philanthropic and profitable company “i am Other.” He has his hands in everything from music to fashion, to internet ventures like Kickstarter. With that kind of success you’d expect a big ego to fit the big…

SUGGESTED READING: The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science – by Chris Mooney This is one of my favorite topics – facts are stupid things. The author opens with Festinger’s study of a group that (incorrectly) predicted the end of the world, and how the unfortunate fate of living increased, rather than decreased, their…